What should coffee blending aim to achieve?

Blend only when the result beats what a single origin can do alone. Start by learning each origin's character, set a clear flavor goal, and define the role every bean plays. Then decide whether to blend raw beans before roasting or blend roasted beans, and settle the number of components and their ratios.

Commercial blending often lowers cost and stabilizes output, and a signature flavor can keep customers loyal. For quality-driven coffee blending, cup repeatedly and adjust ratios until the mix holds up year after year. If the blend tastes worse than one of its components alone, it is better not to blend at all.

The commercial motives behind blending coffee beans usually operate on two levels: first, lowering costs and stabilizing output by combining beans from different origins; second, creating a unique flavor that others cannot replicate, so customers will only seek out one brand. Setting aside commercial considerations, this article focuses on blending practices aimed at improving flavor quality. It begins with understanding the individual character of coffees from various origins, then moves to determining blending goals, defining the role each bean should play, choosing between two methods—blending raw beans or blending roasted beans—and finally the process of deciding the number of components, their ratios, and repeated cupping. Front Street Coffee also lists four representative blend products for reference by coffee shops and enthusiasts with different needs.

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From a commercial perspective, the most direct motive for blending coffee beans is controlling raw material costs—combining beans from different regions and adjusting them into a relatively balanced taste, thereby increasing profit margins. Another common purpose is creating an exclusive flavor, so that consumers who prefer that taste can only buy it from a specific manufacturer and cannot find a substitute elsewhere. This also has a side benefit: even if the flavor of coffee from certain regions fluctuates from year to year, the overall taste of this blend can still remain consistent.

Here we temporarily set aside other commercial considerations and focus on blending aimed at improving coffee flavor quality.

Front Street believes that before starting to blend, the first step is to understand the taste characteristics of various coffees, and to be clear about at least one thing in your mind: the flavor you want to create is something no single-origin coffee can achieve. If the blended result is not as good as one or several of the beans performing alone, that would be a pity, and it would be better not to blend at all. If the beans you use for blending are all of quite outstanding quality, the probability of this happening is not low.

Although some fixed varieties of coffee can be drunk directly as single-origin coffee, most coffees have more or less shortcomings in flavor, such as lack of distinctiveness, insufficient layering, insufficient strength, or some taste that is too sharp. To repair these defects, it is necessary to combine several coffee beans with different characteristics to create a coordinated and deep taste. Some people feel that the pleasure of coffee is concentrated precisely in the two stages of roasting and blending, and that drinking coffee is merely enjoying the results of one's own efforts. Blending coffee is not as simple as casually mixing beans together.

Sometimes, two single-origin coffees blended together will instead suppress each other's unique flavors, which shows that blending is not simply stacking several single-origin beans. The blender's work is somewhat like a painter mixing fascinating colors on a palette, using coffee beans to formulate an alluring taste. It is no exaggeration to say that blending is an art. And as an art, it cannot rely on experience and inspiration alone; it also needs a certain amount of scientific calculation behind it. Good works do not appear out of thin air, but are an explosion after long-term accumulation. Usually a blended coffee does not need more than five kinds of beans, because the more types there are, the more complex the variables become, and almost only a very few experts can avoid being confused by so many beans.

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) focuses on freshly roasted coffee and also launches blend products with different positioning for different customer groups. For customers who value cost-effectiveness, Front Street recommends the espresso moka pot coffee beans praised by many baristas—Front Street Dark Cocoa Blend. This bean is blended from Brazil and Yunnan, is an all-arabica espresso coffee bean, has a price advantage, and performs well in flavor. For customers pursuing flavor, Front Street offers Sunflower · Warm Sun Blend. This product is composed of Yirgacheffe natural red cherry and Honduras Sherry, and because it presents an extreme liqueur chocolate flavor, it is favored by many customers.

The order of blending and roasting

Should you roast first and then blend, or blend first and then roast? Which approach is better?

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)'s view is: if you already have a confirmed recipe, the easiest thing to do is of course to mix different beans first and then roast them together in one batch. But if you are in the experimental stage and need to compare different blend combinations and ratios, then naturally you want to first roast each bean separately, and then conduct various pairing tests. Otherwise, every time you adjust the components or ratio, you have to roast another batch of beans.

In the roasting field, mixing first and roasting later is usually called "raw blending," while roasting first and mixing later is called "roasted blending." These two methods themselves are not superior or inferior to each other. The advantage of raw blending is that the same batch of beans is roasted together, so the roast degree of the whole batch is more consistent and the flavor is stable; but when selecting beans, you should try to choose beans with similar screen sizes for mixing, otherwise uneven roasting is likely to occur. Roasted blending allows you to separately control the optimal roasting curve for each bean and then combine them, making it easier to make up for shortcomings.

Generally speaking, all coffee beans can be roasted together. Only when the roasting result is not ideal enough do you need to consider roasting separately in different batches. In this case, separate roasting often achieves better results. Especially for drum roasters, a relatively moderate roast level can usually be found.

Basic steps and principles of blending

Before starting to blend, the following points should be thought through clearly:

1. The theme of the blend—what flavor you want to create, that is, determining the goal of the blend.

2. Understand the characteristics of each coffee bean—to blend coffee, you must first be familiar with the characteristics of each single-origin coffee and understand the subtle relationship between roast level and coffee flavor, and all of this can only be achieved through cupping.

3. Determine the respective tasks of the coffee beans participating in the blend. Since multiple beans are used together, you must be clear about the role of each bean: whether you want it to highlight a soft bitterness, a vivid acidity, or a heavy body, and to ensure stable extraction. If you want espresso to achieve the above effects, it is recommended to buy mellow, rich, and aromatic espresso moka pot coffee beans—Front Street Classic Blend Coffee Beans. This is a recipe composed of three origins: Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam. It uses a deep roast, can maximize the rich aroma of coffee, and also allows everyone to easily extract rich and dense coffee crema. Whether making an Americano diluted with water or a latte paired with milk, it is very suitable. It can be purchased and ordered at the Front Street Taobao store or the Front Street Tmall flagship store.

When blending, the following principles should usually be followed:

1. The raw beans used for blending should each have distinct characteristics; avoid choosing beans with similar flavors. The selection of raw beans can be considered from three aspects:

Green bean processing method: that is, whether the green beans are processed by the washed method or the natural method; the processing method has a great relationship with coffee bean flavor.

Green bean origin: coffee origins are generally divided into three major regions, including Central and South America, namely about 20 countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, Jamaica, and Peru; Southeast Asia, namely about 10 countries such as India, Indonesia (including islands such as Java and Sumatra), and Papua New Guinea; and Arabia and Africa, namely about 25 countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Arabia, and Uganda. As mentioned earlier, the most commonly used raw beans on the market are Brazil and Colombia.

2. The number and proportion of coffee bean types participating in the blend

Since it is a blend, it naturally refers to a combination of two or more raw beans, but it is also possible to blend the same kind of coffee bean at different roast levels, or even blend new beans of the same coffee with aged beans or old beans. Therefore, in the context of blending, "type" is no longer only the narrow sense of coffee variety, but has broadly extended to the level of coffee flavor.

Blending generally uses 2 to 6 kinds of coffee beans, because too many types make it difficult to express coffee's unique flavor. Blended coffee generally does not use a 1:1 ratio, as this may mutually suppress the other's distinctive flavor tonality, so when blending there must be a distinction between primary and secondary components in order to create a taste more wonderful than single-origin coffee. If you want the blended coffee to have a complex and changeable taste, you can reduce the proportion of the theme raw beans, and vice versa.

3. Blended coffee depends on continuous experimentation

Before blending, you should draft a blending plan table in the manner of mathematical combinations, and then determine the best plan through the process of blending and cupping. Do not think this is a passive, clumsy method; in fact, only through the blender's experience, inspiration, and such tireless experimentation can a good cup of coffee be blended.

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) launches 4 distinctive blended coffee beans according to different requirements:

[Sunflower Warm Sun Espresso Coffee Beans] Honduras Sherry: Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry

Flavor characteristics: obvious fruit acidity, a faint berry aroma lingering, rich wine aroma and chocolate flavor, and a comfortable sweet aftertaste.

The Sherry coffee bean brings this coffee a rich whiskey aroma and the finish of liqueur chocolate, with a rich fragrance. The natural red cherry brings this coffee a fermented feeling and berry aroma, and it is smooth on the palate. Because this Warm Sun Blend coffee bean is a half-pound pack, it is suitable for coffee shops that require a special espresso flavor and somewhat higher bean quality, or for espresso lovers with not a large usage amount.

[Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Specialty Blend] Colombia: Brazil

Flavor characteristics: comfortable sweet bitterness, extremely smooth on the palate, with a faint grassy aroma, light fragrance with slight bitterness, sweet and smooth, and a pleasant aftertaste.

Coffee beans from Colombia's Huila region have a pleasant acidity, an aromatic smell, moderate acidity, and rich sweetness that is very thought-provoking. Coffee beans from Brazil's Cerrado region have a comfortable sweet bitterness and are extremely smooth on the palate. This specialty blend coffee is suitable for various specialty coffee shops.

[Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Commercial Blend] Colombia: Brazil: Robusta

Flavor characteristics: classic taste, caramel sweetness, nutty and cocoa-like, dark chocolate flavors, balanced acidity and sweetness, slightly bittersweet, with a lasting finish.

Coffee beans from Colombia's Huila region have a pleasant acidity, an aromatic smell, moderate acidity, and rich sweetness that is very thought-provoking. Coffee beans from Brazil's Cerrado region have a comfortable sweet bitterness and are extremely smooth on the palate. Robusta provides rich crema. This commercial blend coffee is suitable for coffee shops and beverage shops of all sizes.

[Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Espresso moka pot coffee beans praised by many baristas - Front Street Dark Cocoa Blend] Yunnan AA: Brazil

Flavor characteristics: soft fruit acidity, caramel sweetness, nutty and dark chocolate flavors, smooth and viscous, but the taste is on the lighter side.

Yunnan's natural conditions are very similar to Colombia's: high altitude and a large temperature difference between day and night. Its flavor is of the mellow-aromatic type, with moderate acidity, a rich and mellow taste, uniform beans, high oil content, and fruity notes; its quality and mouthfeel are similar to Colombian coffee. Coffee beans from Brazil's Cerrado region have a comfortable sweet bitterness and are extremely smooth on the palate. These espresso moka pot coffee beans praised by many baristas—Front Street Dark Cocoa Blend coffee beans—are suitable for small coffee shops, bakeries, and beverage shops.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.